Shawki Awad Balzuhair

Shawki Awad Balzuhair

Shawqi Awad Ba Zahir's identity portrait, showing him wearing the white uniform issued to compliant individuals
Arrested 2002-9-11
Karachi
Pakistani security officials
Released 2016-12-04
Cape Verde
Citizenship Yemen
Detained at Guantanamo
ISN 838
Charge(s) extrajudicial detention
Status A former "forever prisoner", transferred to Cape Verde on December 4, 2016

Shawki Awad Balzuhair (born July 24, 1981) is a citizen of Yemen, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[1] His detainee ID number is 838. The Department of Defense reports that Balzuhair was born on July 24 1981, in Hadramout, Yemen.

Initially the United States claimed Balzuhair and five other men seized in Karachi formed an underground al-Qaeda cell they called the "Karachi Six".[2] Eventually analysts would acknowledge that this cell had never existed.[3][4][5]

Official status reviews

Originally the Bush Presidency asserted that captives apprehended in the "war on terror" were not covered by the Geneva Conventions, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention.[6] In 2004 the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that Guantanamo captives were entitled to being informed of the allegations justifying their detention, and were entitled to try to refute them.

Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a 3x5 meter trailer where the captive sat with his hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor.[7][8]

Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.[6][9]

Scholars at the Brookings Institute, lead by Benjamin Wittes, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations:[10]

Formerly secret Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment

On April 25, 2011, whistleblower organization WikiLeaks published formerly secret assessments drafted by Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts.[11][12] His 12 page Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment was drafted on May 18, 2008.[13] It was signed by camp commandant Rear Admiral David M. Thomas Jr.. He recommended continued detention.

Guantanamo Review Task Force

His 2009 Review, by the Guantanamo Review Task Force recommended that although no evidence existed that would justify charging Bulzhair with a crime, he was nevertheless "too dangerous to release".[2] Carol Rosenberg, of the Miami Herald was to call Bulzhair and 78 other men "forever prisoners".[3][14][15]

Period Review

In 2016 Bulzhair had his long delayed Period Review Board hearing.[2] The officials who made recommendations following that review were told that the Karachi Six cell had never existed, after all.

Transfer to Cape Verde

In 2009, following an attempted bombing by a Nigerian jihadist who had been trained and equipped in Yemen, the United States stopped repatriating Yemenis to Yeman.[16] Bulzhair was transferred to Cape Verde on December 4, 2016.[2][5][17]

According to Angela Viramontes, his lawyer, Bulzahair is a private person, who looks forward to anonymity upon his release.[17] She said he wishes to get married, and raise a family, "He looks forward to having a wife, children, and a job, the experiences most young men hope for that Shawqi has yet to experience."

References

  1. ↑ OARDEC. "List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006" (PDF). United States Department of Defense. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2006-05-15. Works related to List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006 at Wikisource
  2. 1 2 3 4 Charlie Savage (2016-12-04). "Guantánamo Detainee Is Sent to Cape Verde in First Transfer Since Trump Victory". New York Times. Retrieved 2016-12-04. Mr. Balzuhair is the second detainee that Cape Verde has resettled. In 2010, it took in a low-level detainee from Syria.
  3. 1 2 Carol Rosenberg (2016-09-30). "New Guantánamo intelligence upends old 'worst of the worst' assumptions". Guantanamo Bay Naval Base: Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 2016-10-01. Retrieved 2016-12-04. Yemeni Shawki Balzuhair got to Guantánamo in 2002 and was held as a member of the Karachi 6. He “was probably awaiting a chance to return to Yemen when he was arrested” at a Karachi safehouse on Sept. 11, 2002, a new intel assessment wrote in January. He was cleared and remains at Guantánamo.
  4. ↑ Andy Worthington (2010-10-13). "Who Are the Remaining Prisoners in Guantánamo? Part Seven: Captured in Pakistan (3 of 3)". Retrieved 2016-12-04.
  5. 1 2 Andy Worthington (2016-12-04). "Yemeni Freed in Cape Verde: 59 Men Left in Guantánamo". Retrieved 2016-12-04. Seized in one of a series of house raids in Karachi, Pakistan on September 11, 2002, Balzuhair and five other men were originally — and mistakenly — regarded as members of an al-Qaeda cell-in-waiting, and described as the “Karachi Six.”
  6. 1 2 "U.S. military reviews 'enemy combatant' use". USA Today. 2007-10-11. Archived from the original on 2012-08-11. Critics called it an overdue acknowledgment that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals are unfairly geared toward labeling detainees the enemy, even when they pose little danger. Simply redoing the tribunals won't fix the problem, they said, because the system still allows coerced evidence and denies detainees legal representation.
  7. ↑ Guantánamo Prisoners Getting Their Day, but Hardly in Court, New York Times, November 11, 2004 - mirror
  8. ↑ Inside the Guantánamo Bay hearings: Barbarian "Justice" dispensed by KGB-style "military tribunals", Financial Times, December 11, 2004
  9. ↑ "Q&A: What next for Guantanamo prisoners?". BBC News. 2002-01-21. Archived from the original on 23 November 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-24. mirror
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Benjamin Wittes, Zaathira Wyne (2008-12-16). "The Current Detainee Population of Guantánamo: An Empirical Study" (PDF). The Brookings Institute. Retrieved 2010-02-16. mirror
  11. ↑ Christopher Hope, Robert Winnett, Holly Watt, Heidi Blake (2011-04-27). "WikiLeaks: Guantanamo Bay terrorist secrets revealed -- Guantanamo Bay has been used to incarcerate dozens of terrorists who have admitted plotting terrifying attacks against the West – while imprisoning more than 150 totally innocent people, top-secret files disclose". The Telegraph (UK). Archived from the original on 2012-07-13. Retrieved 2012-07-13. The Daily Telegraph, along with other newspapers including The Washington Post, today exposes America’s own analysis of almost ten years of controversial interrogations on the world’s most dangerous terrorists. This newspaper has been shown thousands of pages of top-secret files obtained by the WikiLeaks website.
  12. ↑ "WikiLeaks: The Guantánamo files database". The Telegraph (UK). 2011-04-27. Archived from the original on 2015-06-26. Retrieved 2012-07-10.
  13. ↑ "Shawki Awad Balzuhair: Guantanamo Bay detainee file on Shawki Awad Balzuhair, US9YM-000838DP, passed to the Telegraph by Wikileaks". The Telegraph (UK). 2011-04-27. Retrieved 2016-07-09. Recommendation: Continued detention under DoD control
  14. ↑ Carol Rosenberg (2013-06-17). "FOAI suit reveals Guantanamo's 'indefinite detainees'". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 2016-04-11. Retrieved 2016-08-18. The Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg, with the assistance of the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at the Yale Law School, filed suit in federal court in Washington D.C., in March for the list under the Freedom of Information Act. The students, in collaboration with Washington attorney Jay Brown, represented Rosenberg in a lawsuit that specifically sought the names of the 46 surviving prisoners.
  15. ↑ Carol Rosenberg (2013-06-17). "List of 'indefinite detainees'". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on 2016-04-11. Retrieved 2016-08-18.
  16. ↑ "US releases Guantanamo prisoner, resettles him in Cape Verde". Fox News. 2016-12-04. Retrieved 2016-12-04. The U.S. does not send prisoners back to Yemen because of the civil war and had to find another country to accept him.
  17. 1 2 "Yemeni Guantanamo prisoner freed after 14 years without charge". The New Arab. 2016-12-04. Retrieved 2016-12-04. The US military has sent Shawqi Awad Balzuhair, 35, to resettle in the West African country of Cape Verde, downsizing the controversial detention centre to 59 captives, the Pentagon said on Sunday.
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